


Ragnarok

by TheQueenCryptid



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, Predator Original Series (1987-1990)
Genre: Aliens, F/M, Gen, Multi, Sci-Fi, Yautja, predator - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25253863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenCryptid/pseuds/TheQueenCryptid
Summary: Ragnarok tells a story of destruction and rebirth, following the conflict between Rune-Wraith, Enforcer of the Run'Kngyr clan, and a group of Bad-Bloods lead by a rogue Yautja known only as Heretic. It is a tale of deception, corruption, heartbreak and betrayal, but also of the bonds of blood, friendship, and love found in unlikely places while worlds burn and descend into chaos.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Prologue

Blood splattered the ground beneath the captive Yautja’s body, a swirling neon sea slowly soaking into the soil. He’d been reckless, had gotten comfortable living his days hidden from the prying eyes of Yautja Prime, and now was paying the price. Bad Bloods were less than animals to his kind, pariahs that brought shame to them all every second they drew breath, and he knew they would kill him soon. But not until he gave in. Not until he gave up the very last scrap of honor still aflame in his lost soul. Loyalty...the last piece of him that still made him Yautja. Along with all else they had taken from him, of course they would want that, too.

“Speak, _Heretic_ ,” his tormentor hissed, her hatred for him dripping from her mandibles like venom. “We know there are more of you in hiding. You have one chance to redeem yourself in the eyes of Pa'ya.”

A raspy chuckle sputtered at the back of his throat until he coughed up a spray of blood. “You’ve never seen the face of Pa'ya, _Enforcer_. You don’t know her will, and you don’t speak for her. None of you mystics do. ”

Her eyes narrowed. “Cut him down, and put him on his knees.”

Two Hunters were quick to action, wrestling him down from the post and on his knees facing away from the Enforcer, his bare back, as of yet untouched by her blades, presented to her. “When you speak, and convince me you are telling the truth...I will stop.” 

Gripping a handle in each hand, talon-like recurved blades jutting from between her fingers, she began her work. Fierce metal tips bore down into the tender flesh of his sides just beneath his ribs, and his body bucked, a convulsion of pain restrained by the Hunters as those blades sliced upward and traced the edges of his ribs until they met at the middle of his back. His mandibles flared, his throat ragged with screams as those merciless talons sank into the tops of his shoulders at either side of his neck, traveling the length of his spine. Her fingers gripped at the strap of flesh, and as he gasped for breath, she tore it upward until his vertebrae jutted into the open air. And as the claws of the Hunters dug into his arms to hold him still as he howled out into the open air, the Enforcer spoke again.

“Tell me where they are…” Her voice had grown softer, steady and calm despite the carnage she was making of his flesh. “And I will stop.”

Heretic’s mind raced even faster than his heart. It would be a glorious death, one to be honored by his fellow Bad Bloods, but the Enforcer’s hands were steady, and ampules of healing remedy dangled from her hips, ready to make him whole again and rob him of his death.

Another scream tore from him as her blades separated rib from spine, one by one, until his back yawned open like a toothy maw, his shuddering lungs laid bare. It was hard to breathe. Harder still to focus on anything but the pain as he felt her hands slip inside him, palms cradling his lungs as she guided them out of their bone cage like an eagle’s wings, holding the very breath of his life in her hands. Overloaded, overstimulated with agony, the Heretic could swear he heard the voice of Pa'ya calling to him from far away. The heat and color slowly drained from his skin with the flow of his blood, and his loyalties along with it.

**_“Speak.”_ **

**__ **


	2. Harbinger

When War-Bringer agreed to join the Hunt, hand-picked to assist the Enforcer, Rune-Wraith, in her endeavor to eradicate the Heretic’s clan, he hadn’t expected to board a Mothership. He also had not expected the sheer number of Hunters who boarded with him. Picking off Bad Bloods, while an honorable challenge, hardly ever called for an army; not since the war with the Killer clan that rose up against Yautja Prime. As he roamed the yawning halls, it was clear that many were eager for the chance to kill a betrayer, but War was the only one of them who was there to bear witness how the Enforcer drew confessions from her prisoner. He had made it seem as though his was a small band of outcasts, easily handled with less than half the numbers Wraith had requested. Apparently, she wasn’t counting on Heretic for the whole truth, and, he imagined, her plea to the Matriarchs must have been more than convincing to have been given permission to amass such an army.

Now, after weeks of tracking the coordinates to a hidden star system, the Mothership approached a massive nebulous plume, and War prepared himself to pilot a podship. He, and many others, would be scouts, sent to different planets within the system to lie in wait until their enemies revealed themselves. He welcomed the opportunity to explore an unknown world and familiarize himself with the topography, and perhaps even earn himself a trophy hunt in the meantime. That was, if he didn’t find his quarry too soon. 

He sat behind the ship’s controls, engines humming to life as he triggered communication with the mothership. “This is War-Bringer, designated scout to planet R5. Requesting permission to leave dock.”

“Confirmed,” the ragged voice of an Elder replied. “Go with Honor.”

Flames surged against the nose of his pod as he pierced the planet’s atmosphere, but instead of a calm sky full of clouds, sharp winds and blinding snow greeted him on the other side. Hail battered the hull of his ship immediately upon his entry, a relentless barrage, visual sensors useless as he tried to navigate the storm. Alarms sent out their shrill calls as sensors triggered nearly too late for him to avoid the mountain spires reaching high into the clouds. Red warnings glowed across the control board, and War’s fingers flew across buttons and triggers, while his ship charged blind through the blizzard. In an instant, metal scraped across rock. The pod clipped a spire at full speed, sent into a violent roll that flung War from his seat, and tumbled into the treeline, a blast of snow exploding from branches on all sides. Down, down, down, the ship fell, tearing a scar through the earth and stone as War’s vision blurred, an incomprehensible swirl of blue and grey and shocks of fleeting red as electrical components sparked and burst from the walls. Then, just as suddenly as it all began, everything went black, the entire pod striking frozen ground with a deafening impact that sent the Hunter flying free of the ship through shattered glass and twisted metal into the tangle of the woods..

_The trees had swallowed him up, stars shining clear and bright above him as he rested in a criss-cross of branches high above ground. The hoot of an owl drew his attention, listening for the sound of it to echo through the night a second time, only for silence to follow. Crickets chattered in the leaf-litter below, and he could see the faint sparks of warmth glowing in the abdomens of fireflies. He could see the little red and orange shapes just under the topsoil, their color muted by it, but not undetectable; mice and voles scurrying and hiding from the sharp-sighted owls that watched and waited from above. He could hear the soft rustle as near-silent wings spread and displaced the air nearby, soon followed by the sound of talons hitting leaves, and the startled squeak of a mouse that hadn’t been quite careful enough. As the sounds of the forest whispered all around him, War could feel himself drift toward restful contentment, his cares forgotten as he listened to nature’s Hunt._

Something cold brushed his face, there and gone in an instant, and then another, and another, until slowly the Hunter began to stir and open his eyes. Stars and dormant tree branches slid slowly over his vision from above, small, pale flecks of snow drifting down and melting the moment they met the heat of his skin. His lids were heavy, and his body ached, and he could sense something wrapped around him, restricting his attempts to move. Thick furs covered his body, and through the dizzying haze he was certain he could hear the heavy crunch of hooves through tightly packed snow. Then came other sounds; a murmur of voices he couldn’t fully understand, booted feet treading on all sides of him. For a moment, his gut sank at the thought that he had crash-landed right into the Bad Bloods’ midst; a fear that left him as soon as he looked up at his captors.

 _Oomans._ Their clothing seemed to be largely soft pelts, leathers, and furs. What cloth he could see looked old and tattered. He saw no guns, but weapons made of wood, bone, and sharpened stone. And then, the hoof-falls stopped, and so did the sled he’d been strapped to. He closed his eyes, feigning unconsciousness while he listened, and tried hard to ignore the sharp, throbbing pain streaking through his side and one of his legs. Within moments, and with a collective grunt of strain, the men and women surrounding him lifted the sled, and him with it, carrying him until the cold kiss of snowflakes stopped falling against his face and the chill of the air faded away. A fire crackled nearby, and he heard a collective gasp. There were more humans now, too many to try and count by sound alone, and he could feel the scant weight of hands pressing in over the furs that covered him. 

“Viscera! Bruidmother...We were hunting when we saw a bright flame falling from the sky. It fell to the mountain like a stone, just as the Elders foretold. Ragnarok...it is coming...and we believe this is its harbinger.” With those words, a hush of voices rose in a mixture of awe and fear.

War could not only hear her singular footsteps, but _feel_ them in the floorboards beneath him as the Bruidmother approached. The press of hands withdrew, the crowd shrinking back from her as she knelt beside him and inspected his torn, bruised, and utterly alien face with a mix of reverence and dread. “Did it attack…?”

“No. We found it unconscious in the snow near the GodStone. It’s one of the gods, isn’t it? It must be. It looks like the drawings, it bleeds the color of spring-”

“Take it to my chamber and put it on the bed, but keep it bound. Until I know its nature, we can’t take the risk. Go and tell the guardsmen to prepare. The rest of you, go to your homes... and pray the gods still favor us.”

War bid his time. He’d seen the hunting parties return to Yautja Prime from their trips to Earth, only to have lost at least one Hunter to human rivals, and he wasn’t about to risk an entire pack of them without his weapons or biomask in hand. So he laid still, waiting and listening for the moment when he was lifted, with several grunts and curses of effort, onto the bed. Footsteps left the room. A click as the door shut. Then everything was quiet and dark. Moments later, the door opened again, and he heard the familiar shuffle of another pair of boots pass at his right, sensing the heat and light flickering nearby as the Bruidmother lit a candle at the bedside. She moved around him and to the other side, then, a shuffle and soft clatter of something on his left, almost like bones shifting and clicking against one another inside a bowl, glass vials and trinkets knocking about in their shelves.

The wind outside began to bluster and howl, a snowstorm rolling in off the hills as the blizzard that had felled him threatened to return. No doubt it would drive more snow over his ship. Perhaps that would be a good thing. The better it was buried, the less likely these humans would find it again and pillage it of precious Yautja technology. His only good hand flexed beneath the cover of furs, growing anxious with every passing moment that the woman nearby was silent, save for whatever it was she was doing at the bedside table. His body still ached, every cut and gash throbbing with his heartbeat, stains of phosphorescent green no doubt collecting underneath him and into the bedding. Then, suddenly, the touch of her hand on his crest distracted him, and he fought back a snarl when her fingers moved over an open wound. There was something cold and almost mud-like left behind from the unpleasant caress, filling up the long gash in his head and soothing the heat of pain. A healer, then...she was this human clan’s healer. 

When she’d finished with the worst of the cuts and gashes on his head and face, she finally moved to begin removing the layers of fur blankets that covered him. With each pelt taken away, he could feel the cold creeping in from outside just a little more, even through the thermal body netting that covered his torso, arms, and legs. It only served to amplify every raw injury that he might have otherwise been able to ignore, making it that much harder to keep still and silent. He had to clench his jaw and bear it until she removed the straps that bound him, and trust that adrenaline would see him through a successful escape. He wasn’t here to be nursed by soft-meat prey. And if Wraith discovered his immediate blunder... War recoiled at the thought of what consequences would await him. Even the mere embarrassment of it would be enough to see his good reputation dashed on the rocks.

The healer, meanwhile, was rapt by the sight of him now that his full form was laid bare. Her lead hunter had been right. From the strange, elongated crest of the creature’s head, to the thick cords that seemed to mimic hair, his reptilian-insectoid face, and the foreign style of armor and clothing he wore, everything about him resembled the writings and drawings the Elders had passed down to them hundreds of years ago. The sheer size of this stranger, this god, was intimidating enough, and even now, motionless, wounded and unconscious, it took every ounce of nerve within her to dare and touch his divine flesh. Twisted metal and shards of glass from the crash had embedded themselves in his side and across the rest of his body. Plumes of color burst beneath his skin, deep bruising accented with sharp streaks and spatters of green blood that seemed to worsen the lower she looked.. His legs had been mangled where there was no armor to protect them, and one of his ankles had clearly been broken in the crash. She would be shocked if that was the only major injury he sustained, and there was no telling what unseen wounds might threaten his life within. She had already wasted too much time. With nervous, shaking hands, she began to release the straps that held him so she could expose every inch of injury, one by one.

The moment the strap over his chest was released, War’s eyes snapped open and his hand shot for the woman’s throat, pushing her back as he bolted with a surge of adrenaline off the bed and onto his feet. It wasn’t a human face he glared up at, as he’d expected, but there was no time to comprehend what she was through the sudden shock of pain that shot through his foot, up his leg, and settled like razor wire in his side where a piece of his ship had lodged itself. A wail strangled itself from his throat and he staggered, able to see a flash of green eyes and pin-prick pupils staring down at him with fear through the sockets of a horse skull, crowned by a stag’s antlers and framed in fur. The healer gripped desperately at his wrist, screaming something at him. Pleading with him. He couldn’t understand a word through the fog of agony that overwhelmed him. He crashed down to his knees and brought her down with him, slamming her to her back, and roared down at her with a mix of fury and pain.

 **“Syr---ringe! Wea---pons!** **_Where?!?_ ** **”**

She shrieked beneath him, animal skull turning away from his flaring mandibles and sharp teeth, and choked as his grip on her throat tightened.

**_“WHERE?!!!”_ **

Within seconds, there was a flurry of activity. The door burst open. Her hands left his arm. Agony tore through his trunk as her guards rushed forward while she gripped the jagged piece of metal in his side. As War lurched back, her grip tightened, and tore the scrap of his ship free while he fell away from her. A shock of jade blood sprayed from the open wound, and a cold, sick sensation slithered into his chest as he was toppled backward. More pain. His broken foot spiderwebbed with the excruciating sensation, every flex of muscle and sharp struggle like a re-shattering of every bone from his foot up to his knee. Adrenaline surged through his veins. His claws tore out the throat of a guard, crimson spattering the wall as the man’s body twisted and fell. War’s jaws closed on the arm of another, blade-like teeth flaying flesh from bone. This was a fight for survival. A fight for his mission. Desperate. Furious. Bloody. And then he saw her. The skull-headed woman raised a hammer and shouted a command, those eyes that had been so full of terror just a moment ago now burning with rage. The guard whose arm he’d just mangled threw herself out of the way, and the hammer met his temple. His entire skull rang with the hit, and he slumped to the side, dazed and groaning. Vision swimming, red blood dripping from his mouth, he didn’t even see the second swing coming.

Viscera stood over him, panting, frightened and furious tears standing in her eyes as she held the hammer aloft, ready to bring it crashing down again if the stranger made another move to attack. And then, as her gaze moved toward the wet, gurgling sound of one of her guards taking his last breath, cold dread crawled into the pit of her stomach and made her ill. Slowly, as the realization of what had just happened, what she'd just done, crashed over her, she brought the hammer down, until it dropped to the blood-stained floor with a heavy thud. 

"Bruidmother..."

She didn't hear the name at first, utterly consumed by the stream of blood pouring from the god's head and down over his face from the wound she'd just inflicted. She had just killed them all. Herself. Her people. No god would ever forgve her. Not even the great mother, Freja, could help her now. In her mind's eye, she watched the world burn all around her. She had doomed them all to Hel.

" **Bruidmother!** Please...tell us what to do..."

Her tears slipped free down her cheeks, blessedly hidden behind the skull mask, and Viscera finally blinked back to reality. "Take...Take our wounded to the Eiry. Our dead..." Her eyes flicked back to the guard slumped against the wall, throat torn, his head twisted unnaturally to the side as it sagged against his own shoulder. "Prepare him. Do not tell his family...not yet."

"And...him...?" The guard seemed terrified even to look at the fallen god, terror trembling in his voice.

"...Chain him."

"Viscera-"

"Do it. And then take him downstairs. Shackle him there. I need...I need time. I have to speak to him."

There was silence and hesitation from her remaining guards, not one of them eager to carry out the order they were certain would spell their deaths.

"I said _do it_. I won't set an angry god loose on our village. Not until I've tried to earn his mercy. You have your orders. Obey them."

Viscera left them to their work and joined her injured guards on their walk to the Eiry, where she could tend their wounds, and, with growing anxiety, contemplate how she might yet save her people from a god's wrath.

When War-Bringer finally woke, it was to the taste of his own blood, and the cold embrace of heavy chains coiled like snakes all around him. His head throbbed with the beat of his heart, and when his eyes cracked open darkness swallowed him up, interrupted only by the faintest flicker of light dancing across the ceiling above him. He could hear the slow drip of condensation falling to the ground, and the distant roar of blizzard wind, but all else was empty. Silent. A moment later, there came the scuff of boots against stone, and a shadow descended the stairs into the prison’s darkness. Candlelight provided him with little more than a blurry silhouette, but there was no mistaking the shape of that antlered skull on the body of a human woman. _Bruidmother._ That’s what they’d called her. He couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t finished him off when she had the chance.

She carried a large bowl of steaming water that smelled of flowers and herbs and set it down on a small table nearby, then sat on a stool beside him, stiff and still as though she were a deer frozen in a field, but with the countenance of something far more sinister. His eyes narrowed and, with a spiteful snarl, jerked toward her, mandibles flaring wide. She was on her feet in a split second, a blade drawn fast and held toward him, but she did not flee. The pain in his skull punished him for the attempt more quickly than her dagger could, and the chains bit and pinched at his flesh, holding him firmly in place. With a groan, War relented, and put his head back down.

He could hear the stuttering pace of her breathing, a staccato of panic that was slow to fade, but after a long moment, she sheathed her weapon and found her way back to the stool. What he couldn’t see or detect was the trembling in her hands as they came to rest on her knees, or the racing beat of her heart. It was several minutes of silence that stretched between them until, finally, she’d composed herself enough to speak.

“I know there is no atonement for imprisoning a god...and I know I’m on borrowed time until you’re free. I will heal you, and make you whole, and after...you may kill me, if it will please you. But I beg that you spare my people your wrath...”

The translator installed in one of the cuffs in his tresses failed to pick up all her words, the language she spoke a strange blend that neither he nor his technology fully recognized. But what words did slip through, and by the somber tone in her voice, he understood she was making a plea. _Oomans_. Their softness extended far beyond their meat, and infected even their brains. They had captured him, imprisoned him, had every chance to kill him, and now their healer had the gall to make requests of him. War sneered and turned his head, and refused to humor his captor with even the faintest sign of acknowledgement.

Viscera’s jaw clenched, a heavy stone sinking from her throat and settling in the pit of her stomach. The Harbinger had made his point clear; she had nothing to bargain with, and he had no reason to take pity. As a god, perhaps he had no need of her healing at all, but she could not simply walk away and make no gesture of atonement. She had to do all that was in her power to prove her devotion, even after she had put him in chains...even if it meant hastening her own death.

Slowly, cautiously, she left her stool to take a rag that laid in the bowl of hot medicinal water into her hands, and approached him, whispering a prayer under her breath. She brought the rag down onto the worst of his wounds, the deep gash in his side, and War summoned all his resolve not to flinch or cry out in pain. He would not show such weakness in front of her, and suffer further embarrassment, but the longer she held the damp cloth over his torn flesh, the less the pain became, until it had faded to a dull, throbbing ache. Warm rivlets of water slithered down his skin, mingling with his blood, and cooling in the chill of the air. It was hard not to shiver, and he scowled as he felt the skin of his arms and the back of his neck prickle. She repeated the process again, rinsing the rag in the steaming water, and bringing it back to his wound, gently pressing, stroking, carefully and diligently cleaning it and wiping softened scabs away, until the gash was clear of debris. Then came the dull prick of a bone needle, the pain more irritating than distressing as she began to stitch the wound shut with thick thread. The ache in his side became sharper, but still far easier to ignore than before she’d begun, and War closed his eyes, focused his breathing, and pushed his thoughts away, freeing them from the confines of this bleak, cold dungeon, to begin planning how he would proceed with the mission.

While War faced his immediate challenges on R5, Wraith sat in her quarters within the Mothership. A flat bone pendant with a carved rune sat nestled in her palm with a string of beads, her thumb moving slowly and idly over its smooth, worn surface. A red holoscreen projected from the bracer on her left forearm, the star system displayed in slow rotation as little red dots moved through space, each one belonging to a podship and scout. Nearly all of them had reached their destinations now, and it would be at least a week before she could expect any of them to send in reports. These were new and uncharted planets and moons, unexplored territory, and it would take time for the Hunters to get their bearings. As much as she understood and accepted this, the fire in her chest did not diminish. She would root the Heretic's clan out, one by one from their holes, until she could stand upon a mountain of their corpses and sing a song of victory and vengeance to Pa'ya.


	3. The Godscrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over 100 years in the past, Bright-Eyes, the youngest son of the Run'Kngyr Matriarch, is taken on his first hunt in the wilderness of the Godscrest on Yautja Prime. Accompanied by his sister, Rune-Wraith, and brother, Shrike, the Yautja child hopes to earn his honor by feeding his clan, but soon learns that honor often has a price.

The Godscrest had always been inhospitable to the Run’Kngyr; it was a frigid land where only the strongest and sturdiest of Yautja could survive its bitter cold. A light snowfall drifted downward, tiny white flakes that melted the instant they touched the warm skin of the trio of Yautja crouched together behind a massive felled tree. Their bodies were wrapped and cloaked in thick hides, furs, and bone armor backed by a lining of metal. On the other side of the tree, a grisly beast known as the Talvek raked its tusks against the trunk of a neighboring tree, prehensile lips gathering up the chips of bark to chew and crunch between sharp, powerful molars. Spikes ran the length of its long head and down either side of its short, curved spine, thick wool protecting it from the bitter cold while sharp claws dug into the icy earth, rooted and secure where it stood. 

“Bright-Eyes,” Wraith whispered, “Climb up and keep your eyes on it. Shrike and I will make a wide circle and come to its flank. Do not let it notice you until we are in position, and do not fly an arrow until you hear my signal.”

The youngest of the trio, little more than a child, with eyes as blue as winter ice, nodded his affirmative, and dug his claws into the wide trunk that hid them from their prey, clambering quietly to the top where he could crouch and watch the beast as it ambled away from one tree to another. Wraith handed him his bow, then gave a nod to Shrike, and the Hunters split away from their young brother to carry out their plan.

Every kill made in these treacherous woods was hard won. The prey of these mountains were well equipped to evade capture, and even the Godscrest itself plotted against those who hunted in the crags and valleys of its peaks. Clumsy and lumbering as the beast seemed, it was more than capable of enough speed to outrun its predators, and when faced with no other option, its tusks and claws were devastating weapons. Bright-Eyes remembered the stories the Hunters of his clan told, some passed down to them by their sires and bearers, tales of Yautja too headstrong and proud, who became over-confident and careless in their pursuit of such prey. Briefly, the boy felt a twist of fear in his stomach when the creature paused and turned its head, as if it had noticed a smell or sound, his entire body rigid until it returned to feeding. He let out a breath, eyes scanning the surrounding trees for some hint of his siblings moving into position, but all was still and silent. 

Wraith crept in a wide arc around their prey, her long limbs moving slowly, calculating every patch of icy earth she dared to tread upon. The slightest shifting of snow, a crack of ice; if she disturbed the winter foliage too much, their quarry would retreat, and they would lose the advantage of their ambush. Deep in her throat, she mimicked the sound of a Lek’tai, a small flying creature common to the mountains, and threw her voice into the trees for Shrike to hear and pinpoint her position. He answered with a call of his own, very nearly in position, himself, while Bright-Eyes perked and readied his bow.

Down the line of the arrow, the Talvek turned its massive body, as if guided by the hand of the goddess Pa’ya herself, to nibble up bark from a different angle, exposing its ribs and heart to the young Hunter. Bright-Eyes took a deep, steadying breath, his own heart racing in his chest, exhilaration and anticipation rising up into his throat and spreading through his limbs like wildfire. He had a perfect shot, just as Wraith had taught him, and it took all the self-control he could muster not to let his arrow fly too soon. Then came her second call, a short, sharp chirrup that drew the prey’s attention, and made it freeze in place. The perfect moment. The perfect shot. Bright-Eyes drew the bowstring back to his cheek, certain of the hunt’s success.

An explosion of electric blue sent the boy toppling backward off his perch just as the arrow took flight and buried itself in the thick neck of the screaming beast as it scrambled away. White-hot pain seared through Bright-Eyes’ shoulder as his back met the cold earth, his skin, not yet fully hardened and thickened with age, split open and cauterized, his own blood spattered across his chest and face. He laid on his back, winded and stunned, only to hear another sizzling shot slice through the air and explode in a flash against a tree near his sister’s position. 

**_“WRAITH?!!”_ **

Another blue bolt tore from the trees, ice and earth erupting beside Bright-Eyes’ head as he yelped and rolled away, bracing back against the cover of the fallen tree. Cold fingers of panic crept through his gut and clutched at his heart, one shaking, bloody hand snatching at the skinning knife on his belt. Heavy as it was in his small fist, recurved and sharpened, it could do nothing against the plasma weapons of their rivals. He was not yet a skilled fighter, and the sudden thought that perhaps he never would be turned his blood to ice. 

Silence fell over the mountain, the Talvek long gone in its retreat, the boy’s hot, trembling breaths turning to mist in the air. His shoulder ached, pain clenching the full length of his left arm like a vice, sharpened by the cold, but the boy didn’t dare look at the wound. He bit back a whimper, his good hand clutching the knife’s hilt tighter as his mind raced for what to do. Movement in the trees caught his eye, and he braced, searching the treetops and squinting at a faint mirage that made the high branches shudder as if draped behind a curtain of heat. In a blink, the shimmer was gone, and slowly, Bright-Eyes crawled to the edge of the tree and dared to lean out and look for any sign of his siblings.

A bolt crashed down on the spot, splintering the thick, gnarled roots where Bright-Eyes’ head had been, and he screamed, his position exposed. A series of snarling, buzzing clicks filled the air from above and all around like a chorus of cicadas as terror gripped the child, wide, pale eyes flitting frantically through the branches, desperate to catch movement, to see some warning, some sign of where he ought to run. A triad of small, red red appeared in the foliage at his feet and slid up his body, then came to rest at the center of his crest. His grip on the knife trembled as the source of the laser-sights uncloaked to reveal a massive male clad in metal armor, fitted with modern weaponry. He stared down at Bright-Eyes from his high perch through the cold, unfeeling visor of his biomask, the blaster at his shoulder rising into position to take the shot.

Wraith’s spear flew through the air with a sharp song as it sliced the wind, and the male roared, impaled through the ribs. His body crashed through the bare winter branches and collided with ice and earth like a boulder. The air still full of the chattering of surrounding warriors, Bright-Eyes didn’t dare to move. His sister’s amethyst frame, over nine feet tall and made of sharp sinew and scars, leapt to the earth from the tree she had climbed and bolted to the fallen body of their enemy, kicking him onto his back. He coughed up a green, bloody sludge, a new explosion of blue erupting from his canon just as Wraith raised an axe to cleave his skull.

Bright-Eyes watched helplessly, his heart caught in his throat, his shoulder and arm burning with pain while hot tears escaped from his eyes at the certainty that he’d just witnessed his sister’s death. Then a hand clutched at his uninjured arm and yanked him from the ground. He screamed, thrashing and twisting and thrusting his knife wildly in the stranger’s grasp. Shrike snarled, and forcefully twisted Bright-Eyes around, shoving him forward as another blue bolt flew toward them. **_“GO!!”_ **

As the blast exploded against the armor of his brother’s back, the boy ran, his spiked boots raking at the ice and keeping him steady as he clambered over rocks and roots, bits of bloody green phosphor left in the snow as he went, chased by the snarls of blaster bolts flying toward him. The hiss of chattering clicks faded into bellows and battle behind him, his tears stinging his skin as the chill of the air made them bite with cold. His lungs screamed, but under the grace of Pa’ya’s mercy, and a surge of adrenaline, Bright-Eyes could not feel the pain in his arm, nor noticed the unnatural way it swung limp at his side. He had to reach home as fast as he could, had to send help for his brother and sister. There was no room left for pain or fear beyond that singular purpose, and so he ran, harder and faster, no matter how it made his lungs and muscles burn.

* * *

“We will not last long here,” Shrike hissed, dragged by his sister into the tangled roots and hidden hollow of a tree, his back aflame with the heat of his wounds. She twisted him onto his belly, pulling strips of thin, translucent, blue adhesive fibers from the healing kit on her belt, and packed them against the raw, burnt edges of his flesh. 

_“Be still,”_ Wraith hissed back down at him, and froze at the sound of footsteps overhead. They both held their breath, and waited until the rival Yautja passed them by. “They do not know the mountain as we do,” she whispered. “The advantage is still ours.”

“You should not have come on this hunt.” Shrike’s mandibles slid sharply across his teeth with a mix of anger and pain, and grasped her forearm when she offered it, pulled up so he could sit. He glanced sideways, and found what he knew to expect; indignance in her golden eyes. “If _you_ die, who will inherit our Mother’s robes?”

“I am not the one who is wounded, _brother_ . _You_ are closer to the Black Warrior than I. Now brace yourself, and be silent, before these Yaruk fools hear you and kill us both.”

Wraith unhooked a long syringe from her belt, twisting its cap to extend the needle within before clicking a vial of healing liquid into place. Shrike grabbed hold of the thick, tangled roots all around them, and bit back the cry of pain that tried to claw its way from his throat as his sister plunged the needle into his back and let loose the medicine that felt as though it would burn the walls of his very veins. He huffed out ragged breaths, every muscle flexed and taut, eyes squeezed shut until the sensation ebbed away, and gave way to merciful numbness. Outside the hollow, their enemies stalked the woods and muttered to one another through com-links installed in their bio-masks.

“Blood here, from the young one.”

“Possible diversion. Bait.”

“Or a path to their stronghold.”

“It’s the female we need. Forget him.”

“We should chase him down. Catch him before he can alert his clan.”

“Yes,” growled the apparent leader of this band of Hunters, a female whose skin and markings were the color of blood and bone. “Vakuto, Ty’Kesh...you two go. Capture him swiftly, keep him alive.”

_“Heat signature.”_

**“Where?”**

A whistling song sliced the air, and Wraith’s spear found its mark once again, pinning one of the Hunter’s skulls to the tree beside him with a splatter of greyish-green brain matter and glowing blood. His body spasmed, a hollow groan in his throat as one hand reaching to clutch at the rod of the weapon. His damaged mask’s visors sizzled and glitched until his vision went black and his body hung limp against the tree.

 **“IN THE TREES! SCOUTS, GO!** **_FIND THE-!_ ** **”**

A wet, deafening crunch cut the female off as an axeblade whipped through the winter mist and buried itself in her chest, the impact toppling her to the ground. Her armor was split, sternum broken, but the axe was stopped by thick flesh and tough meat before it could cleave her heart. With a pained, furious bellow, she signaled her small army of Yautja to split apart, some clawing their way up into the trees to meet their enemies, while others spread through the rocks and snow, red laser-sights sweeping through the canopy and across the icy ground.

* * *

The sun sagged under the weight of oncoming night, and Bright-Eyes stopped to catch his breath, legs wobbling as he crumpled and scrambled to hide himself behind the thick trunk of a tree. Just a little further, he thought. A little bit further, and he would reach home, and send the full strength of their clan to Wraith and Shrike’s rescue. He just needed to breathe, to fight through the pain. For the first time, the young Yautja finally looked down at his aching arm, and felt his stomach churn. It dangled by a thread of muscle and flesh, held more in place by his coat sleeve than by its own structures. Somehow, whether it was blood loss, the bitter cold of coming night, or both, the pain was less than it had been before, settling into a throbbing, warm ache that would soon go numb, if he didn’t make it to his mother, the Matriarch and Healer of his clan. He thought of her, then, as large and pale as the mountains of their home when it turned to golden tundra in the summers, but far warmer, far gentler, and more forgiving. The boy wanted nothing more than to feel the comfort of his mother’s arms, her medicines, and the soft, growling hum of her voice. New tears rose fresh in his eyes, and he blinked them away, assuring himself that he would make it back to her, and that his siblings would soon be saved.

Not far behind him, following the trail of tracks and hints of blood he’d left behind, the rival scouts were catching up, and it wasn’t long before he heard their feet crashing through the snow. Bright-Eyes froze, holding his breath as their footsteps came closer and closer, dashing toward him. Run or stay. If he ran, they’d already be well within range to shoot him down. If he stayed, he gambled with the possibility they might pass him by. There was no time to decide. In moments, they were upon him, and his eyes squeezed shut, bracing himself for the cold vice of the Black Warrior’s nets to ensnare him.

Instead, the rustle and crunch of feet pounding through snow grew distant again ahead of him, and the boy’s eyes opened again, watching as the two scouts left him behind, heading for the break in the treeline that opened onto bare tundra, the stronghold of the Run’Kngyr clearly visible in the open cradle of the Godscrest.

“Ty’Kesh! Stop! We’ve lost the boy’s trail…”

“And found something far better. I’ll deal with the child. Get back to our group and lead them here. No doubt they have subdued the others by now.”

Vakuto hesitated, mandibles clicking against his teeth in thought as he side-eyed his clanmate. “Make sure he’s captured by the time I return with our warriors, or our Matriarch will take both our heads.”

The taller of the two chuckled, and gripped his brother’s shoulder firmly. “If I fail in trapping a child, Vakuto, that is the day I will gladly surrender my life. Now, do not insult me by arguing, and go.”

While they spoke, Bright-Eyes crept as quietly as he could to the branch of another tree, and climbed his way up, clenching his jaw against the pain in his dangling arm until he made it to a spot high and out of sight. He watched as Vakuto ran back the way he came, leaving Ty’Kesh to the task of tracking him. The boy still had his skinning knife, but wished, desperately, that he hadn’t dropped his bow.

“Where are you, boy?” the warrior snarled, scanning the trees for a glimmer of color or hint of movement as he moved slowly across the snow. “How ashamed of you your Bearer would be, if she learned how cowardly you are.”

Bright-Eyes’ jaw flexed and brows lowered, a slurry of anger and fear in his gut. The warble of a Lek’tai interrupted the silence, and the boy flinched as a bright blast exploded against the branches of the tree where the winged creature had been perched, leathery wing-beats and a chorus of angry squawks filling the air as a flock of them retreated into the night sky. One unfortunate individual, however, laid dead among the gnarled roots of its roosting tree, half its body blown open, barely recognizable as anything but a splatter of meat and blood. 

“I will not kill you, child,” came a growled promise, but all Bright-Eyes could look at was the Lek’tai’s remains, hot innards beginning to steam in the growing chill of the air. “I have orders only to catch you. If you come without a fight, I will not harm you. You will simply return with me to meet my Matriarch. Be brave, boy...You have a chance to avoid war. Our clans have battled long enough, have they not? Do you not want to put an end to it?”

The young hunter swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat, every limb tensing each time Ty’Kesh’s line of sight nearly found him. It was only a matter of time. If he stayed in the tree, his capture was imminent. If he moved to return to the ground, there was no way he could do so in complete silence. And so, with a trembling voice, Bright-Eyes took the only option left to him, and braced for the consequences.

“Y-yes, I...I want the fighting to stop.”

Ty’Kesh whirled around, the long cords of his tress swinging with the sharpness of the movement, and stalked closer to the tree where the boy’s voice had whimpered. He moved around its wide trunk with caution until his laser-sights found the child. It was only at that moment he realized how very young the boy was, how small compared to the old, towering tree. Dishonorable prey.

**“Come down.”**

“I can’t!” Bright-Eyes cringed at the sharp and obvious fear in his voice, an almost-sob of sound catching in his throat. “I mean...I will, but I am wounded. My arm...I need help.” The boy tried not to tremble, but his entire body had tensed beyond his control, his voice a staccato as his skin buzzed and heart hammered with a new surge of adrenaline.

Ty’Kesh’s mandibles flinched beneath his bio-mask, a slow series of impatient and suspicious clicks rattling in his throat.

“What are you waiting f-for?!” Bright-Eyes’ voice broke with the strain of summoning his courage. “Do you fear a prince of the Run’Kngyr? A pup? Ha! S-...some warrior _you_ are.”

A terrifying roar belted from Ty’Kesh’s chest, and the boy nearly toppled backward, his heart thundering in his chest. After a long moment, the warrior hissed his frustration, and began his own ascent into the tree with frightening ease. Bright-Eyes had only a moment, just one chance to steele himself as the massive male climbed up to him, gripping his knife tightly and out of sight. When one large, thickly-muscled arm scooped around him, the boy swung his good arm around Ty’Kesh’s shoulder, and buried his blade to the hilt in the base of his neck.

The warrior howled in fury, and flung Bright-Eyes from the tree like plucked fruit. He hit the ground hard, knife still clutched in his fist, and the wind knocked from his body. As he struggled for breath, he rolled to his belly, and heard the heavy weight of Ty’Kesh slam down behind him. 

**_“S’yuit-de!”_ ** Ty’Kesh cursed, and took long, angry strides across the snow as the acid-green heat of his blood slid in twin rivers down his back and chest. “Your mother truly raised a _fool!”_

Bright-Eyes heard the sharp sound of a single gauntlet blade springing out of its metal sheath, and felt his heart sink, coughing as he struggled up to his hands and knees. The warrior’s foot made a swift and painful end to his recovery, clawed toes slamming into the boy’s ribs, and sent him rolling. The next moment, the weight of that same foot slammed down on Bright-Eyes’ injured arm, while the other swung down onto his chest, pinning and pressing him deeper into the snow. With a pained and panicked cry, Bright-Eyes swung his knife at the warrior’s leg, only for the blade to scrape uselessly across metal panels of armor.

“I only need you alive,” Ty’Kesh snarled hatefully. “But not whole.” 

His gauntlet blade hovered over the boy’s already mangled shoulder

_“...no! No, please!”_

The razor edge sliced into the carnage of his flesh, and Bright-Eyes screamed. No matter how hard his legs kicked, how many times he hit the warrior’s well-armored shin with his knife, there was nothing he could do to stop the blade from grinding through meat and sinew. The sound of it sawing through bone made the boy retch, gasping for air as his vision blurred, and every nerve came alive with pain. The warrior had no interest in making the cut clean or quick, and took his time. Seconds felt like hours of agony, until finally, with a wet pop, Ty’Kesh gripped Bright-Eyes’ wrist and tore his severed limb free of its socket.

The boy squealed, a hiccup catching in his throat when Ty’Kesh’s foot moved away from his chest, only for his fist to ball in the front of Bright-Eyes’ cloak, jerking him upward and then shoving him face-down in the snow. Seconds later, while phosphorescent blood gushed from the child’s shoulder and melted through the snow beside him, Ty’Kesh brought the flat of his own hunting knife, loaded with a blue cauterizing jelly, down onto the open wound. Exposed muscle and torn flesh alike sizzled, and if the young prince had thought the blade had been the worst of the pain, he was swiftly proven wrong. He shrieked, writhing beneath the warrior until suddenly the world around him spun into dizzying darkness, and silence swallowed him whole. 

_“Ty’Kesh.”_ The voice of the warrior’s brother spoke from somewhere behind him, and he looked over his shoulder to see the light catch Vakuto’s colorful crest.

“Ah, good. You are just in time.” Ty’Kesh cleaned the jelly from his blade and tucked it, and his aid kid, back into the pack on his hip, a cruel chuckle in his voice. “He thought he would play a trick and get away.”  
  
“Is he dead?”  
  
“No. Unconscious. Did you bring the Matriar-”

A strange sensation took him by surprise; a hard impact from behind, the loss of his breath, as if somehow something had hit him hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. And yet, there he stood, still on his feet, the world upright, and then an even stranger sensation. Pain.

He looked down to see the end of a pronged spear jutting from his diaphragm, dripping with blood, and for a moment he considered it with sincere and profound confusion. One hand lifted to touch the prong-blades, as if testing to see if they were real. Had his Matriarch attacked him? Had taking the boy’s arm been against her will? His brow knit, but soon the pain and difficulty for breath overrode his desire to understand what had just happened. It wasn’t long before the answer presented itself.

Vakuto’s face appeared beside him, but there was something wrong with it, his eyes clouded and unfocused, his jaw hanging open. It wasn’t until his face had moved to the front of him that Ty’Kesh finally understood. Vakuto’s head was held aloft, his neck severed, by the elder brother of the unconscious boy at his feet. Shrike had used one of the oldest hunting tricks known to the Yautja, and mimicked the voice of his prey. 

“Im-possible.” Ty’Kesh gasped, and felt his footing waver as he took one staggering step back. “Out-numbered. Out….gunned.”

Shrike tossed Vakuto’s head to his brother’s feet, and drew his axes from his belt. A moment later, the towering sister, Wraith, circled around to collect Bright-Eyes from the snow, and cradled him to her chest, leaving her spear jutting from the warrior’s body as her golden gaze bore hateful holes in Ty’Kesh’s skull.

Shrike wasted no words on his enemy as the rival warrior extended his gauntlet blades once more and launched forward in a clumsy lunge, one last, futile attempt to win the battle. With his axes clutched tight in his fists, Shrike swung them both forward, and scissored Ty’Kesh’s head from his shoulders. It rolled backward and hit the snow with a deft thump, while his body crumpled to its knees and slumped toward the snow. The tip of Wraith’s spear drove into the frigid earth, and propped up the weight of Ty’Kesh’s carcass until its owner triggered the prong-blades to retract, and yanked its blood-soaked length free.

“We need to hurry,” she said. “The rest of them will catch up to us soon.”

Shrike knelt to collect the heads of the brothers he had felled, and did as his sister suggested, running with her across the frozen tundra toward the safety of Run’Kngyr walls, where they would rouse the fury of their army, and send them out to kill and drive away the Yaruk clan.

* * *

When Bright-Eyes woke, it was to the sound of a crackling fire, and the soft warmth of his mother’s breath moving beside him. Utterly dwarfed by her immense size, the boy found himself cradled in her arms, as she had once done long ago when he was only a pup. It was equal parts embarrassing and comforting, and after a moment he decided the latter was the stronger sensation. The pain of his ordeal had left his body, thanks to her powerful medicines, but the fear, the ghost of panic, of being so certain he would die - those blades were still deeply buried.

“It’s all right,” came her low, humming voice, vibrating deep in her chest and against his cheek. “You are safe now, my son...my precious boy. There is no one here to harm you.”

His arm ached, and in that moment, he felt a spark of hope that perhaps, with her healing, with the blessings of Pa’ya, his limb had been restored. But as he shifted his weight, and wrapped his good arm around his own chest to touch his shoulder, that hope sank deep into the pit of his stomach. Gone. All of it, gone.

Rune-Song heard a whimper begin in her son’s throat and gently shushed him,taking his tiny hand in her massive palm, and pressed the tips of her mandibles to his forehead in a quiet, purring kiss.

“This loss, and these scars, bring honor to you, my son. Tomorrow, there will be a great feast to honor our warriors who fought, and fell, to defend our home...and you will be among them.”

“But...I.did nothing,” Bright-Eyes whispered, mandibles stiffening as they folded tightly against his teeth and his face retreated from his mother’s sight into the warmth of her chest. “I was afraid...I begged him not to-”

His words cut off with a sob, and his mother held him closer, shifting his position until he could tuck his face into her long, grey tresses, and wrap his remaining arm around her neck, little claws clutching at her robes as hot tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Ssshh...You are not yet a warrior, that is true. But you fought back, despite your fear. Your sister saw the wound in your enemy’s neck, and the blood on your blade. You were right to be afraid. Fear sharpens our will to survive, and so you have. I am proud to know that you were born with a warrior’s heart. Your courage in the face of fear proves it so. So do not weep, my precious one. You are alive, and that is all that matters.”

A soft song began deep in her chest, a steady hum that seemed to vibrate the very air around her, and soothed Bright-Eyes’ distress. Her enormous body rocked slowly, like a grand old tree swaying under the assault of blizzard winds, firmly rooted, ancient and steadfast, with no fear of being felled. Her song, like most other songs of the Run’Kngyr, was a prayer to Pa’Ya, its slow, drawn-out verses requesting the goddess’ strength and resolve, her calmness and peace in the face of the storm. The low, rumbling tone of her voice only added a fire-like warmth to the words, and soon, Bright-Eyes’ tears ran dry, lulled to sleep in her safety.

“We almost lost him today.” A soft, somber voice interrupted the Matriarch’s song, and she looked up to see her daughter, Wraith, standing in the doorway.

“It was not Pa’Ya’s will. By Her grace, he was returned to us.” Slowly, Rune-Song placed her sleeping son on a bed of thick furs, and covered him with another, her fingertips stroking the smooth dome of his crest.

Wraith moved further into the room until she reached the other side of him, and slid beneath the furs to nestle close, unable to tear her eyes away from the ugly wound bandaged in fibers where his arm had once been.

“Those we captured alive will suffer,” Rune-Song mused, the stroke of her hand moving to cup her daughter’s cheek, eyes beckoning her to look up and see her resolve. “And you, my daughter...you will decide when their debt of blood is paid.”

Outside the fortress, far from the comfort and safety of the Matriarch’s chambers, the severed heads of the fallen Yaruk warriors gaped, slack-jawed, into the distant mountain spires that surrounded the valley of the Godscrest, while a few stray Lek’tai descended to perch upon the pikes, and plucked at their eyes. When morning came, they, too, would feast.


End file.
